Beautiful End
by peregrinepandora
Summary: One-shot. Following the final battle, Snape leaves Hogwarts for good. It's a long walk from the castle to the gate.


Beautiful End

~*~

Had he been a man of euphemism and poetry, Snape might have said the sky looked different that day, the way the red blended into the twilight where the Dark Mark had risen for the last time.

He carefully laid books inside the boxes and suitcases, which were open pell-mell in the painfully organized suite.  Painstakingly, holding them to their order.  Then the bookshelves were empty, and he continued to his desk, which truthfully contained very little.  Gathering the few trinkets together and stuffing them into the last open box, he stepped back, surveying the familiar room, now unfamiliar in its emptiness.  Part of him felt like a stranger, almost as though he had never been there.

A slight scoff escaping his lips, he brushed a thin film of dust from where a book had been before.  With a near-silent charm, the packages filed out the door and out of sight.

Spinning once around, a last-call for anything he had left behind, he found the rooms spotless.  

"I thought I might accompany you to the gates," Dumbledore called from the doorway.

Lips curling into a smile, Snape turned to face the wizened old man, catching his twinkling eyes.  They walked together in step through the dark stone corridors.

As they passed the portraits, some waved and called out, others merely watched.  Snape's eyes flashed all around, taking in the color of the stone and the woodwork on the banisters.

The grandeur of the Great Hall was noted, the brilliant coloring of the sky, the little stars just barely coming into view on the ceiling.  The head table was now empty, one chair gone.

Creaking slightly, the great wooden door wrenched open to the wide field between the castle and the gate.  The lake was off in the distance, and he could just barely remember crossing it for the first time in those godforsaken dinghies.

The expanse of grass that separated him from the fortress gate seemed both very large and very small at the same time.

"It seems lifetimes have passed since you came here, Severus," Dumbledore said.

"It has been," Snape replied quietly.  "Many lifetimes."

"But I promised you it would end one day."

"You did."

Dumbledore bobbed his head happily.

Snape was suddenly filled with the knowledge that he would never again see Hogwarts castle.  Never again would he tidy the remains of a shattered cauldron, nor teach a sleeping potion, nor scowl menacingly at twittering second-years in the corridor.  

He would cease to live in dread, never stand in a circle of hooded figures, and his arm would never burn; he would only see one face when he passed a mirror.  

He would never have to endure one of Dumbledore's brilliant ideas, nor one of McGonagall's pitiful lectures.  But he would never see her fiery determination.  He would never see the old man's twinkling eyes.

It was achingly bittersweet.

Though he couldn't bring himself to look, he could feel the majestic castle shrinking behind him.  A place that contained his childhood, his formative years, and his first sins; that contained his confessions and atonement, the eighteen years that seemed to stretch much longer.  His repentance and forgiveness beat in the heart of the stone.

They reached the gate.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.  "This is where I leave you."

Snape looked up at the sky, where the last dim remnants of the Mark were at last disappearing.  With unbridled relief, he felt it fading within himself as well.

"I never thought I'd live to see this," he disclosed soberly.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.  "To be honest, my boy, I didn't think you'd live to see it either," he chuckled quietly.  "You have gloriously surpassed every expectation I ever had of you."

Snape merely nodded.  

"Remember, Severus, there will always be a place for you at Hogwarts."

He nodded again.  "Thank you, sir."

Smiling, Dumbledore pushed open the wrought iron.  Snape stepped off the grounds, leaving behind the world where he had two faces, where he was a traitor to both causes.  Where everyone knew his name.

He opened his hand in a kind of feeble farewell.

The gate closed behind him.

~*~

Author's Note:  Thanks for reading!  Please review!

Disclaimer: All characters are property of JK Rowling.  I've merely borrowed them, and put them right back in their proper places.


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